Key Takeaways:
Holistic Insight: Behavioural analytics reveals not just surface-level activity, but also subtle, long-term behavior trends that can indicate overall efficiency and performance.
Enhanced Decision-Making: By identifying patterns such as star performers or outlier behaviors, organizations can drive targeted business transformation.
Cybersecurity Benefits: Monitoring internal behavior helps detect anomalies that could signal security risks, supplementing traditional perimeter-based defenses.
Cross-Domain Utility: The principles behind online behavioural analytics are equally applicable to corporate environments, demonstrating their versatility in improving operations and safeguarding assets.
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What comes to mind when you think about behavioural analytics? Over the last decade platforms like Kissmetrics have dominated the world of online shopping, with deep levels of insight across long timespans.
For example when my family pointed out my bald spot I secretly looked at an online pharmacy about a year ago. I came back to the site a few times, but somehow could not bring myself to admit that it was happening. Recently I read that The Donald was taking hair loss tablets. Whilst they did not seem to cure the comb over, it looked like they might be working.... Point being simple weekly stats would miss that it took me four visits over a year to pluck up the courage to buy my magic hair growing potion.
Understanding the behaviour of individuals as well as the herd has been a key feature of modern behavioural analytics.
Behavioural analytics is not just for online shoppers. What happens if we start using the same technology within our own corporations?
Some people and some teams may be more efficient than others, whilst some might be visibly dysfunctional. We can often observe this, but truly understanding why can be tough. The go to answer is often personalities, but the solution is more often organisation and process.
Looking at an individual level, are people behaving as you would expect them too?
Who are your star performers and role models?
How consistent is your group performance?
Armed with these types of stats we can use them to transform the efficiency of our departments, and even modest increases in efficiencies can lead to significant improvements in delivery times. The effects of behavioural analytics in business transformation can have significant financial value.
Whilst business transformation is one aspect, cyber security is another area focussing on behaviour in a big way. A significant number of hacks, theft and data breaches have some origin within the organisation itself. Guarding the perimeter can only achieve so much, and network security software is by nature tuned to ignore human behaviour. So when we really want to protect the entire organisation we have to understand the people inside it as well as the technology. For example how do people classify and how do we understand when people are behaving in ways that are different to their peers.
Very few people would run a major eCommerce site without behavioural analytics, the same principles apply to our corporate internal structures. In a world where people are still our greatest assets, understanding whether people are leaders, followers, star performers, stealing data or simply searching for a cure for their bald patches requires understanding their behaviour on a large scale.